Tiling Glossary – Q

Tiling Contractor’s Glossary.

The location of an operation where a deposit of stone is extracted from the earth through an open pit or underground mine.

quarry block.

Generally, a rectangular piece of rough stone as it comes from a quarry, frequently dressed (scabbed) or wire-sawed for shipment.

quartz.

A silicon dioxide mineral that occurs in colorless and transparent or colored hexagonal crystals or in crystalline masses. One of the hardest minerals that compose stones such as sandstone, granite, and quartzite.

quartz-based stone.

A stone that may be either sedimentary in formation (as in sandstone, or metamorphic, as in quartzite). Definitions of the classes of stone which form the quartz-based stone group are explained in ASTM C119.

quartzite.

A highly hardened, typically metamorphosed member of the sandstone group. Quartzite contains a minimum of 95% free silica. Quartzite can look similar to slate, but is actually harder and denser. Also available in slabs.